Big company tax

The Mail on Sunday reveals Britain has been forced by European judges to pay back billions in tax to multinational companies, overturning the decisions of British chancellors going back more than 40 years.Tobacco giants, insurers and hoteliers are amongst the companies that have been awarded payments running into hundreds of millions of pounds from HMRC in the past year.One case saw HMRC hand £620m to British American Tobacco after the European Court of Justice ruled it taxed the company too heavily for more than 26 years.Six other multinationals, including insurer Prudential and engineering firm Invensys, won a case in the High Court last month that entitles them to £207m in payouts.In addition, pension schemes are bringing similar cases over taxes paid on dividends. The BT Pension scheme is seeking to recover £124m, while Marks & Spencer received £18m from the Revenue in 2014 in a case focused on offsetting European losses against UK tax bills.